An official website of the Equity Framework
A person-centered approach must guide the region’s efforts in creating an equitable region and closing racial disparities. A shared understanding of equity is essential in working toward a more equitable region.
To ensure shared understanding around what equity within Imagine 2050 means, to ensure consistency across all policy chapters, and to embed equity within the planning, processes, decisions, and policies of this plan and others, Imagine 2050 defines an equity statement and an equity framework. Equity is both a practice and a process, so conditions of success are included to ensure that effective operationalization is possible at all levels of implementation.
Equity statement
The equity statement was developed as a guiding definition to ensure a shared understanding and application across Imagine 2050 and for the region. The equity statement encompasses the primary emphasis and outcomes desired for regional equity. Other marginalized – factors, such as abilities and income, still matter and are critical aspects in an intersectional perspective on impact and outcome.
Equity means that historically excluded communities – especially Black communities, American Indian communities, and communities of color – have measurably improved outcomes through an intentional and consistent practice of adapting policies, systems, services, and spending so that they contribute to the repair of both historic and ongoing injustice.
Imagine 2050 centers race in its focus on equity because of the strong connections of systemic racism and racial inequities with other inequities. The Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE) writes, “Racial inequities continue to be deep, pervasive, and persistent across all indicators for success, regardless of region. Deeply racialized systems are costly and depress life outcomes for all groups. Systems that fail communities of color first and hardest, fail all of us.”136 If one desires to uncover inequities, one might begin with race first, and inequities in other demographics will be discovered. Thus, all groups experiencing inequities (such as those with different abilities or low-income households) benefit when we lead with race in our equity efforts. GARE makes a call to action for local governments, stating: “As local and regional government deepens its ability to eliminate racial inequity, it will be better equipped to transform systems and institutions impacting other marginalized groups.”
In partnership with the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, the Met Council developed a regional equity framework. The equity framework guided the development of Imagine 2050 and will continue to guide the Met Council’s work and the implementation of Imagine 2050. The grounding concepts of the equity framework include contextualized, community-centered, and reparative (see Figure 1) to provide a lens through which planning, processes, decision-making, and policies can be evaluated.
Figure 12: Equity framework grounding concepts
The purpose of the equity framework is to provide an intentional approach to taking steps to remediate the prolonged impacts of historical and inequitable practices in the region. The grounding concepts of the equity framework are foundational across the four accompanying frameworks and bodies of work that target more specific equity issues. They are:
- Environmental justice framework
- Anti-displacement framework
- Community-centered engagement
- Land, water, and people commitments
The following section offers an in-depth approach to implementation of the equity framework and conditions for success that are included to ensure that well-established principles of equity work are adopted.
Structure of the equity framework
The equity framework is intended to be used to assess whether stated intentions of policies, planning, and processes align with the three grounding concepts: contextualized, community-centered, and reparative. The grounding concepts enable a better understanding of the power of positional roles and reflect on challenging preconceptions, good or bad, regarding the system or policy area regarding equity and inequity.
- Contextualized: Ensure solutions address systemic inequities.
- Specifically name institutionalized inequities impacting residents of the region.
- Center the communities’ account of the history and/or relationship to the issue and inequities.
- Gain a better understanding of the way historical injustice (exclusion, undercapitalization, etc.). compound to become present and future injustices, disparities, and barriers.
- Community-centered: Work with impacted people and populations to co-create solutions.
- Guide approaches by expertise from communities and residents experiencing the greatest impact.
- Maximize existing decision-making processes to the benefit of communities and residents who are experiencing the greatest inequities.
- Ensure transparency and proactively share information with the communities and residents who are experiencing the greatest inequities.
- Reparative: Seek restorative remedies commensurate with the level of negative impact.
- Identify current mechanisms in place to ensure that policies are routinely assessed, improved, and adjusted.
- Translate equity policy priorities into the implementation of programs and procedures and projects.
- Current practices seek to repair past inequities in a manner that is commensurate with the negative impacts of past injustices.
- Measurable impact of equity-oriented actions and efforts are able to be observed, felt and evaluated.
The equity statement and five conditions for success provide concrete areas, or facets of existing conditions to review the systems and policy areas for improvement.
Conditions for success
Leads with race: Improve outcomes toward eliminating racial disparities. Focusing on racial equity provides the opportunity to introduce a framework, tools, and resources that can also be applied to other areas of marginalization. In project, program, or policy development, leading with race means:
- Reflecting the experiences of Black communities, American Indians, and people of color, and that those experiences are reflected in the supporting data and analysis and additionally, that the data and analysis are disaggregated and granular (to extent possible) to determine whether there are differences in outcomes among different populations.
- Specifically supporting Black people, American Indians, and people of color, and analyzing whether everyone is served equally or equitably.
- Identifying and considering inequities between racial groups.
Action-oriented: Intentional, ongoing, and consistent practice of adapting policies, systems, and structures. In project, program, or policy development, action-oriented means:
- Considering all tools and authorities that can be leveraged including funding, as well as identifying strategies available and the conditions under which they would be used.
- Evaluating the potential to increase/decrease disparities in the region; acknowledging when disparities remain constant for each potential action.
- Tracking and quantifying progress towards equity outcomes.
- Ensuring that equity-oriented work is sustained and refreshed over time.
Historic context: Repair both historic and ongoing injustice. In project, program, or policy development, this means:
- Assessing past actions or investments and taking responsibility for resulting harm or inequities.
- Evaluating current conditions and context for whether they are reflective of reparative outcomes.
Power-sharing: Historically excluded communities share power in all levels of decision-making. In project, program, or policy development, this means:
- Engaging the groups most impacted as a starting point and, where needed, building capacity within communities to effect change in governmental decision-making.
- Engaging the groups that traditionally have not had power in government to provide feedback at every stage of the work.
- Reflecting the priorities of impacted groups in the work.
Accountability: Measurable improved outcomes as defined by those most affected by them through engagement. In project, program, or policy development, this means:
- Identifying measures to track progress towards meeting the identified outcomes.
- Reporting on progress towards those outcomes or goals even if they have not been reached or have had negative outcomes.
Figure 13: Equity framework conditions for success
